This is the British Museum main entrance. It rather reminded me of the Assemblée Nationale in Paris, but I guess it's that Ancient Greek style that the Europeans copied everywhere, so it makes sense.
First things first, the Rosetta stone! Given that I was obsessed with codes and writing in ancient languages my whole childhood, I'm glad I finally got to see this. Pretty crazy to think about how they managed to start deciphering hieroglyphics, all because of this.
I started on the first floor, weaving through lots of Egyptian artifacts, since I decided that was what most interested me (particularly since that's the sort of thing that I think Britain has France beat for).
Before finding my way to the real mummies, I detoured through the Etruscans, the Greeks and the Romans. I thought this collection was pretty cool. I guess I've always been pretty into ancient civilizations, although I had sort of forgotten about them in recent years where my preoccupation has been French historical randomness.
This is a suit of parade armor made from crocodile skin. It was CRAZY to see, and think about how old it is. It comes from the 3rd or 4th century AD, when the Roman Empire made it to Egypt.
This display really cracked me up. The information placard on the inside says "The Greek Drinking Party" (funny, if you think about it in a college setting, and then try to picture what museums dedicated to the ancient American college civilizations will look like someday hahaha) and then proceeds to explain that the word 'symposium' literally translates as 'drinking together.' All of those academic "symposiums" start making a lot more sense, let me tell you!
Back into ancient Egypt, with some pretty wall paintings.
The eye of Horus at the top was a protective symbol, but beyond that my memory is pretty limited.
One of the inner sarcophagi, I had never thought about the fact that there would be written inscriptions all over the inside, although it only makes sense!
A REAL MUMMY! There were TONS of them, and many had the CAT scans posted next to the explanatory placards, which made it eerily real ... To think that they were able to preserve people that way is a bit unnerving.
Some more of the 'coffins.'
The King's Library at the end. It was really awesome, a huge hall filled with artifacts from everything. Someday I want a library that looks like this ...
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see you now know the literal meaning of "symposium" I bet you'd like to hear the equally interesting literal meaning of sarcophagus: flesh eater. The sarco is the flesh part and it shares its etymology with sarcasm (cutting flesh I think). Sciency words sometimes use the word phage for eating I believe.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'll have to correct you slightly on your architectural analysis. The columns are of course Greek like but that particular wide triangle pediment is an Etruscan innovation heavily borrowed by Romans. Being nitpicky yes, but I am recently becoming acquainted with the Etruscans.
Ahhh OK, that makes sense. I was just thinking of the Parthenon and all of those other buildings that I have vague images of in the back of my mind -- naturally, I bow to your superior knowledge of Greek and Roman historical architecture. The Etruscans seem pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteI suggest you check out the most recent episode of This American Life, too, because they do a piece on the first underwater archaeologists who spent 50 years excavating a Byzantine merchant ship that sank! I think you'd like it.